When the deed comes and the hour,
As she crieth to thee “Son”
Let thy “Father” quell her breath!
But a stroke and it is done,
The unblamèd deed of death.33
Antistrophe 3
—The heart of Perseus, darkly strong,
Be lifted in thy breast to-day:
For them thou lovest in the grave,
For them on Earth, be blind, be brave:
Uphold the cloak before thine eyes
And see not while thy Gorgon dies;
But him who sowed the seed of wrong,
Go, look him in the face and slay!
Oh, in courage and in power,
When the deed comes and the hour,
As she crieth to thee “Son,”
Let thy “Father” quell her breath!
But a stroke and it is done,
The unblamèd deed of death. Enter from the country Aigisthos.
A message called me; else I scarce had thought
To have come so quick. ’Tis a strange rumour, brought,
They tell me, by some Phocian wayfarers
In passing: strange, nor grateful to our ears.
Orestes dead! A galling load it were
And dripping blood for this poor House to bear,
Still scored and festerous with its ancient wound.
How shall I deem it? Living truth and sound?
Or tales of women, born to terrify,
That wildly leap, and up in mid-air die?
What know ye further? I would have this clear.
We heard the tale; but go within and hear
With thine own ears. A rumoured word hath weak
Force, when the man himself is there to speak.
Hear him I will, and question him beside.
Was this man with Orestes when he died,
Or speaks he too from rumour? If he lies …
He cannot cheat a mind that is all eyes. He enters the House.
Zeus, Zeus, how shall I speak, and how35
Begin to pray thee and beseech?
How shall I ever mate with speech
This longing, and obtain my vow?
The edges of the blades that slay
Creep forth to battle: shall it be
Death, death for all eternity,
On Agamemnon’s House this day;
Or sudden a new light of morn,
A beacon fire for freedom won,
The old sweet rule from sire to son,
And golden Argolis reborn?
Against two conquerors all alone,
His last death-grapple, deep in blood,
Orestes joineth. … O great God,
Give victory! Death-cry of Aigisthos within. Ha! The deed is done!
How? What is wrought? Stand further from the door
Till all is over. Move apart before
Men mark, and deem us sharers in the strife.
For after this ’tis war, for death or life. The Women stand back almost unseen. A Household Slave rushes out from the main Door, and beats at the door of the Women’s House.
Ho!
Treason! Our master! Treason! Haste amain!
Treason within. Aigisthos lieth slain.
Unbar, unbar, with all the speed ye may
The women’s gates! Oh, tear the bolts away! …
God, but it needs a man, a lusty one,
To help us, when all time for help is gone!
What ho!
I babble to deaf men, and labouring cry,
To ears sleep-charmèd, words that fail and die.
Where art thou, Clytemnestra? What dost thou? …
’Fore God, ’tis like to be her own neck now,
In time’s revenge, that shivers to its fate. Enter Clytemnestra.
What wouldst thou? Why this clamour at our gate?
The dead are risen,36 and he that liveth slain.
Woe’s me! The riddle of thy speech is plain.
By treason we shall die, even as we slew. …
Ho, there, mine axe of battle! Let us try
Who conquereth and who falleth, he or I! …
To that meseemeth we are come, we two. Enter from the House Orestes with drawn sword.
’Tis thou I seek. With him my work is done.
Suddenly failing.
Woe’s me!
Aigisthos, my beloved,37 my gallant one!
Thou lovest him! Go then and lay thine head
Beside him. Thou shalt not betray the dead. Makes as if to stab her.
Hold, O my son! My child, dost thou not fear
To strike this breast? Hast thou not slumbered here,
Thy gums draining the milk that I did give?
Lowering his sword.
Pylades!
What can I? Dare I let my mother live?
Where is God’s voice from out the golden cloud
At Pytho? Where the plighted troth we vowed?
Count all the world thy foe, save God on high.
I will obey. Thou counsellest righteously.—
Follow! Upon his breast thou shalt expire
Whom, living, thou didst hold above my sire.
Go, lie in his dead arms! … This was the thing
Thou lovedst, loathing thine anointed King.
I nursed thee. I would fain grow old with thee.
Shall one who slew my father house with me?
Child, if I sinned, Fate had her part therein.
Then Fate is here, with the reward of sin.
Thou reck’st not of a Mother’s Curse, my child?
Not hers who cast me out into the wild.
Cast out? I sent thee to a war-friend’s Hall.
A free man’s heir, ye sold me like a thrall.
If thou wast sold, where is the price I got?
The price! … For very shame I speak it not.
Speak. But tell, too, thy father’s harlotries.
Judge not the toiler, thou who sitt’st at ease!
A woman starves38 with no man near, my son.
Her man’s toil wins her bread when he is gone.
To kill thy mother, Child: is that thy will?
I kill thee not: thyself it is doth kill.
A mother hath her Watchers: think and quail!
How shall I ’scape my Father’s if I fail?
To herself.
Living, I cry for mercy to a tomb!
Yea, from the grave my father speaks thy doom.
Ah God! The serpent that I bare and fed!
Surely of truth prophetic is the dread
That walketh among dreams. Most sinfully
Thou slewest: now hath Sin her will of thee. He drives
